Car sharing is becoming more popular these days. Encouraging the use of car-sharing platforms is a necessary step in achieving Singapore's vision of becoming car-lite.

One way to incentivise more drivers to switch to car sharing would be to allocate more dedicated car-sharing spaces in convenient and highly visible locations in carparks all across Singapore.

Currently, parking spaces that are reserved for car-sharing users are often located on the highest floors of multi-storey carparks or in obscure locations that are inconvenient to access.

The rationale given for placing car-sharing spaces on the highest floors of multi-storey carparks is that the lower floors are reserved for season parking and "regular" motorists.

If we truly want to encourage drivers to give up their personal cars and take up more sustainable options such as car sharing, we need to rethink the traditional system of allocating spaces in carparks. Car-sharing platforms should be given priority over personal cars.

Car-sharing users pay for the length of time they hire a car, and when a car is located on the highest floor, that can mean minutes of their time spent just driving inside the carpark.

Placing car-sharing spaces on lower floors would also improve the visibility of such services.

Dawn Chan Min Ming